


each man's mad desire

by kingtear



Series: unchangeable firmament [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Actor Hannibal, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Notting Hill Fusion, Bookstore Owner Will, Falling In Love, Fluff, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, M/M, Secrets, but also it's still a little canon, gratuitous allusions to epic poetry, yes...still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28684233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingtear/pseuds/kingtear
Summary: Will likes to keep to himself, content with a quiet life managing his used bookstore. He has no idea who world-famous actor Hannibal Lecter is.That changes.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: unchangeable firmament [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099988
Comments: 19
Kudos: 166





	each man's mad desire

“Do the gods light this fire in our hearts or does each man's mad desire become his god?”

Virgil, _The Aeneid_

* * *

The bookshop luxuriates with the faint colors of an autumn sky. It’s a quiet morning in Seattle, the sparse, leaf-littered streets visible to Will through the window. He takes a sip of coffee and hopes that he has no customers today. 

Right on time, the entrance bell chimes. Will sighs and plasters on an expression that could pass for a smile. “Welcome,” he says. 

Tailored-suit-and-cheekbones regards him cautiously before his eyes traverse the store, ostensibly casing it. If Will didn’t know any better, he’d be suspicious that he’s about to get robbed. 

“Can I help you,” says Will in a tone that discourages any possible affirmative response.

The man tilts his head, disarmingly reptilian. Maybe Will _is_ about to get robbed. And then murdered. “I’m looking for a copy of _Paradise Lost_.”

“This isn’t an antique book store,” says Will, because a lot of people get misled by the chaotic shelving layout and the name: The Lost Book Emporium. “They’re quite literally lost books. I sell stuff from flea markets and garage sales and library closings and donations. Like Goodwill.”

Beverly told him to name the shop Good Will Books. At the time he thought it was a hilariously bad suggestion, but after years of rare book collectors and dilettante socialites storming out in a huff, he’s starting to think he should have gone with it.

“I see,” says the man, with a flicker of disappointment.

“Yeah. So,” says Will, ever the salesman.

To his surprise, the man doesn’t leave immediately. Instead he wanders over to a cluster of shelves and browses the spines, then extracts a book seemingly at random. _The Count of Monte Cristo._

“There are no prices.”

Will finds himself stepping out from behind the counter as he replies. “You can pay what you want. Nothing, even. It’s the whole point of this place — literature for all.” 

“Is that not what libraries are for?”

“Borrowing something is very different from owning it.”

The man nods approvingly. “Indeed.” He places the Dumas back and picks up _The Cask of Amontillado._ “Do you organize by theme?”

Will blinks. No one has ever figured out the shelving system so quickly. “Yes.” Feeling off-balance, he snipes, “What does it say that you beelined for the ‘Revenge’ section?”

“What does it say that you placed it at the front of your establishment?”

Will barks out a laugh and then smothers it with a scowl.

The man smiles back. It’s unexpectedly charming. The corners of his eyes crinkle with sincere warmth. “My name is Hannibal Lecter. It’s a pleasure to meet a kindred spirit.”

“Will Graham,” says Will, shaking his hand. There’s a faint spark of recognition when Hannibal gives his name, but he lets it die. “Let’s be sure to never wrong each other.”

“I doubt there is much you could do to wrong me,” Hannibal says with the air of a man untouched by the earthly realm. To Will’s chagrin, he fails entirely to find the arrogance off-putting.

“Hm. How about sorting _Paradise Lost_ into nonfiction?” 

“It is fortunate you have no such section.”

“You’re right. Follow me to Original Sin’.”

“Gladly.”

Will swallows and leads the way, feeling dark eyes on his neck. He retreats to the register with a flimsy excuse about a business call and leaves Hannibal surrounded by the ink-stained pages of _East of Eden_ and _Lord of the Flies._

.

.

.

Eventually, Hannibal approaches the register with a yellowed, worn copy of _Paradise Lost_ and an outrageous sum of cash.

“I got that for free from a college kid who dropped out of the English major,” says Will, pushing the hundred dollar bill back across the counter.

“That seems like a rather personal detail to provide to a bookseller.”

“It wasn’t hard to guess. He dumped it along with the entire collected works of Chaucer. Anyway, I’m not letting you pay more than five dollars for that. Seriously.”

“Milton’s magnum opus is worth far more than that, whatever form it comes in.”

Will stares at him flatly. Hannibal returns the money to his wallet and says, undeterred, “Perhaps I may offer another form of payment that I find more equitable.”

“Um.”

“Let me cook you dinner,” Hannibal continues before Will can say something truly mortifying.

“Oh.” Will furrows his brow. “Are you saying that having dinner with you is equivalent in worth to _Paradise Lost_?”

“I’m an excellent chef.” His smile is just a bit crooked. 

“Okay. Sure. Dinner,” says Will. God help him.

.

.

.

On Saturday Will drives nearly an hour out of the city boundaries and into the creeping greenery of Hannibal’s isolated forest mansion. He tries to surreptitiously drop the $20 bottle of wine he picked up at Whole Foods in the trash can when Hannibal isn’t looking. Hannibal catches his wrist, tsk-ing in amusement, and somehow that leads to him pressing Will against the counter and mouthing at his neck while Will shudders against the leg between his thighs like a teenager.

They have a late dinner.

.

.

.

“Welcome.” Will smiles when he sees that it’s Hannibal. He forgot to get his number when he left the man’s house a few days ago and wasn’t entirely sure he would ever see him again.

Hannibal approaches the counter, business-like except for the gleam in his eye. “I’m looking for a copy of _The Aeneid._ ”

“Sure. Check the ‘Fate’ section. Or ‘Glory’, if someone already grabbed it from there. Some high schoolers came in last week.” Will comes across a lot of duplicates. Most books get shuffled into a multitude of sections.

“Do you have it in Latin?”

“Can you read Latin?” Will pauses. “Of course you can. And probably Sanskrit, too. Sumerian.”

Hannibal reaches past the space between them, cupping Will’s cheek. “Neither of those, unfortunately. But I could teach you Latin.”

Will leans into the touch, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “I know some.”

“Is that so?”

“Sure. _Arma virumque cano._ ”

Hannibal laughs. “Perhaps we could read it together.”

“Alright. Let’s get copies.” Will rounds the counter.

“Excellent. I know a quality bookstore. The owner is quite beautiful.”

“Beautiful.” People don’t usually find him attractive. He’s disheveled and unfriendly and has an ill-healed scar that takes up half his face.

But Hannibal doesn’t seem to see it. He says, adoringly, “Mesmerizing, in fact.”

Will tries not to blush or beam and fails spectacularly. Hannibal pulls him in and kisses him until his lips are red enough to match his cheeks.

.

.

.

Hannibal hangs around the shop for the remainder of the morning, the two of them reading behind the counter and exchanging intermittent commentary. Will opts to read the English version, though he digs out a Latin copy for Hannibal and asks him to translate lines or verses he finds particularly compelling. At some point Hannibal sees a group of customers approaching through the window and excuses himself to the storeroom. The young women are regulars familiar enough with both the layout and Will’s abrasive demeanor that they default to a friendly wave before beelining for the Hubris section. Hannibal doesn’t emerge until twenty minutes later after they’ve left with armfuls of Greek tragedies and Hemingway.

“And I thought I was antisocial,” Will comments.

Hannibal returns to his side, hand coming to rest on Will’s waist. “Apologies. I thought it inappropriate for me to remain here while you conducted business.”

“Whatever makes you comfortable,” Will shrugs, not thinking much of it, “Frankly if I could get away with running this place without seeing or speaking to anyone, I would.”

“Anyone?”

“With one or two exceptions,” Will allows. 

“And who might the second be?”

“Jealous?” Will teases, with a bit of thrill when Hannibal doesn’t deny it. “It’s just an old coworker. She’s sort of my only friend, but she lives across the country so I don’t see her much. That sounds bad.”

“Not at all. I too have found it difficult to acquire genuine friends, and harder still to maintain the relationship.”

“Probably because you refer to friendship in the same terms as an M&A deal.”

“An apt metaphor. In my experience, relationships are ultimately transactionary. Cold, contractual obligations, even if the terms go unwritten.” Hannibal squeezes his side and says, fondly, “With one or two exceptions.”

“I don’t know. It seems to me you’re getting an awful lot of free books out of this. I’m getting suspicious of your motivations.”

Hannibal laughs. “You’re right to be so. I admit: I have designs not only upon your person, but your literature collection.”

Will doesn’t respond for a beat too long. The pendulum. Arterial spray on his tongue, steel wintry in his hands. _This is my design._

“Will?”

“Sorry, uh. I just feel like I should tell you something. Before we move forward with the deal,” says Will, entirely too anxious for the joke to land. He moves his gaze to a point just past Hannibal’s ear and falls into a well-practiced recitation: “I have an abnormally high number of mirror neurons, as well as some indeterminate communication disorders that culminate into what psychiatrists call pure empathy. Before the bookstore, I worked with the FBI as a profiler. I spent eight years hunting serial killers, getting in their heads. Becoming them. It’s led to a lot of problems for me. There was one killer where I got too close and I— that’s how I got the scar. After that, I left and moved across the country.” 

There. That should be enough. He stops, expecting a confused inquiry or distaste or sympathetic platitudes. But when he searches Hannibal’s expression, he finds only affection — maybe even pleasure.

Hannibal sweeps a stray curl behind his ear. His knuckles linger after on Will’s scar. “You’re a brave man. A good one.”

“I’m not. I’ve,” Will’s voice flattens, “I’ve killed two people. In my head, I’ve killed way more than that — brutally.”

“It was all done in the line of duty, and you should be lauded for it. I myself admire you all the more.”

“I’m not a hero. I still have them in here with me, the killers. All of them. I feel how they feel— felt. I was very unstable before.” He tries to avert his eyes again, but Hannibal steadies his face and strokes his cheek soothingly. “I’m a bit unstable now,” Will admits.

“You are utterly perfect,” says Hannibal, with complete conviction. “You truly are a rare gift, Will. What have I done to deserve you?”

He leans in and kisses him before Will can argue otherwise. There’s a voice in Will’s head saying this will all end in disaster, but he ignores it and kisses Hannibal back, determined to treasure this for whatever time he has.

.

.

.

He remembers to get Hannibal’s number. Well, more accurately, Hannibal remembers to get his. Two hours after leaving the shop with a devastatingly loving embrace and a battered copy of _The Aeneid,_ Hannibal calls him. Will has barely recovered from the emotional strain of their earlier conversation, and he’s also drank three cups of coffee since Hannibal left. His heart is hammering when he picks up.

“Hi?” he croaks, certain that Hannibal has realized what a nutjob he is and is going to break it off. 

“Hello, Will. Are you free this weekend for a trip?”

“Oh.” Relief seizes him. “Uh,” he hesitates, not because he’s busy or reluctant to spend this much time with Hannibal, but because he feels like he should be. Will thinks about it for a split-second and discards the whole notion like he discarded the remains of his life five years ago. “Yeah. I’m free.”

“I have a small beachside property in California if you’re amenable to flying. I’ll arrange for everything, of course.”

“Oh. I’m not sure that I...” Will inhales and shoves the notion further in the garbage. “Actually, that sounds great. I’m amenable.”

“Wonderful. Could you meet me at my house Friday? I’ll message you an exact time once I have the details finalized.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.” Hannibal breathes a little sigh like he can’t believe his luck. “I’m looking forward to it, dear Will.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Will musters up the courage to say, “I miss you already.”

“I ache for your company as well.”

“Jeez. You’re ridiculous,” say Will, like his stomach isn’t doing flips.

“Only for you.”

He wonders if Hannibal can hear his grin through the phone like he hears Hannibal’s fond, crooked smile. “Goodbye, Hannibal.”

“Goodbye, Will.”

.

.

.

Will knows Hannibal is wealthy; he’s seen the man’s house and car. He also told Will that his family had money and he came into further surplus when he pursued a career in medicine. But Will did not know he was private-charter-flight wealthy.

“This is something,” says Will after they board the jet. The seats are colored that specific bland shade of beige that screams luxury. “I’m realizing now you could definitely kidnap me and have at least 72 hours of leeway.”

Hannibal, staring him down in that eerie reptilian fashion that Will is now primed to find arousing, says, “Is that something you would like?” 

Will shakes his head and doesn’t answer. Two attendants sweep away their luggage and then vanish behind a sliding door.

Hannibal guides him into the seat beside him and buckles Will’s seatbelt for him, his hands brushing suggestively against Will’s pelvis.

“Tell me you didn’t book a private jet just so we could join the mile high club.”

Hannibal settles back and laces their fingers together. “I won’t tell you that, then.”

“Good. Because there’s still other people on this plane and it’s not happening.”

It happens.

.

.

.

Hannibal’s “small beachside property” is a veritable mansion on a private beach somewhere in the vicinity of San Diego. At this point, Will isn’t even surprised. 

“Would you like a tour?”

“Maybe in the morning.” He’s a bit tired from the flight. They spent half of it _engaged_ and the other half exchanging tidbits about their lives. Improbably, Hannibal was just as interested in hearing about Will’s sporadic sailing adventures and tenure as a police officer as Will was in learning of Hannibal’s passion for the arts and his life in Europe, at medical school.

They get ready for bed together, brushing their teeth side-by-side. Will has the privilege of seeing Hannibal do a laughably intense skincare routine; he pokes fun, but somehow Hannibal manages to convince him to partake and then he’s patting toner onto Will’s cheeks and smoothing cool serum on the bruises under his eyes. He strokes the raised skin of Will’s scar so tenderly that Will has to blink back tears. The intimacy makes his knees weak. He clutches Hannibal’s waist for balance and, when Hannibal is done lavishing his jaw with pomegranate-scented cream, pulls Hannibal into a tight hug.

“I don’t know you well enough to be feeling this way,” Will confesses into the crook of his neck.

“Then know me.”

“Is it that simple,” asks Will.

Hannibal kisses the top of his head, unbearably gentle. “It can be.”

.

.

.

For breakfast they have poached eggs and salmon on fresh-baked bread. Hannibal mourns that he could not make the bread himself and Will consoles him by promising that he can teach Will when they go back to Seattle. He’s began to think of a future with Hannibal as an inevitability. Has a hard time remembering what his life is supposed to be like without him. Musty books and shitty instant coffee, no social life besides calling Beverly once a month to assuage her of her guilty obligation to their friendship. Will can’t remember how he was ever content with that.

Then again, he hasn’t exactly been _happy_ for the last few years.

Thoughts of the past fade easily when faced with Hannibal’s adoration. They spend the morning on the beach, bare skin pressed together from back to chest, melding. Will drifts off to the soothing notes of Hannibal reading Virgil aloud in Latin.

Lunch consists of what Will dubs “really fancy sandwiches” — he can’t remember the actual name. Will contributes by washing vegetables and mixing a salad around. He is abysmally inefficient at both tasks because Hannibal keeps dropping affectionate little kisses on Will’s neck and shoulders or squeezing his hip as he passes, like he can’t resist touching him. 

“I have a surprise for you,” Hannibal says as they finish cleaning up. 

“Yeah?” intones Will with the slightest bit of anxiety. He’s never much liked surprises.

“You’ll enjoy it.” Hannibal takes his palm and kisses his fingertips, then intertwines their hands. “Let’s go down to the dock, my dear.”

Hannibal has procured a sailboat and had it delivered during their lunch. It towers white and lustrous, swaying with the rhythm of a lullaby in the water. The side of the boat is inscribed with golden letters: _Lavinia._ Daughter of the Latium king, destined to wed Aeneas and lay the foundation for a new Latin empire. 

“You…You’re not very subtle,” says Will, shakily. 

“Only with you, dear Will. I have changed all my behaviors for you. Most notably, I did not previously believe in fate. Yet I have no other explanation for the pull I feel towards you.” Hannibal squeezes his hand, grounding, and Will sways into his side. “In the time we have known each other, I have nourished a passion that I did not believe I was capable of.”

Will can’t look away from the glittering water, the vessel. Beckoning.

“I have freed my calendar for the next month. We could sail back,” Hannibal says, and allows the silence of the sea to fall between them.

The dock beneath their feet is a precipice. Will could step back from the ledge, say no to the offer or crack a joke. He could ignore Hannibal’s words entirely and carry on as if they planned to spend only an indulgent afternoon on the waters. Likely, he should. 

“Okay,” says Will. “Let’s go.”

.

.

.

They spend a little over three weeks at sea. As Will is doing the majority of the sailing work (though Hannibal is a blessedly quick study when Will needs assistance), Hannibal insists on taking responsibility for their other needs. He cheerfully prepares three extraordinary meals a day and often wakes before the light of dawn to deliver Will breakfast in bed. Will thanks him each time with a kiss, among other things.

When the weather is good they spend the day above deck, soaking up the Pacific sun and growing healthily bronzed. They finish _The Aeneid_ and move onto _The Iliad_ , and eventually _The Odyssey_. Hannibal attempts valiantly to impart his knowledge of Latin on Will, who absorbs a decent amount of vocabulary but very little grammar. Will calls it a win, nonetheless, to listen to Hannibal’s voice turn over the syllables of such a beautiful language.

Nights they lay on deck and watch the stars, speaking quietly of the future. Hannibal promises they will go to Italy and Greece to visit the ancestral lands of the heroes they study. Will says they can do more than visit — they can retrace their journeys by sea. 

They dock infrequently, only for Will to perform bits of maintenance and someone Hannibal hires to deliver them supplies. Hannibal never even steps off the ship, instead lounging like a satisfied jungle cat as he watches Will shuffle about shirtless.

Their longest stop is for two days in the Channel Islands to wait out bad currents and hike along the jut of towering green cliffs carved deep into the ocean’s skin. Hannibal is unfairly attractive in athletic wear and sunglasses that should by all counts make him look absurd but instead generate an irresistible, asshole-ish charisma. He takes full advantage of this by upping his usual number of smug smirks and, at one point, tipping the sunglasses down to wink at Will. Will strikes back by stretching languidly when they reach the sunset viewpoint, shirt lifting to reveal his hip bones where Hannibal sucked bruises the night before. They make the hike back to the boat in record time.

As they proceed north, the air grows colder and they spend even more time orbiting each other for warmth. Tucked under Hannibal’s chin with the covers wrapped around them, Will shares his nightmares and memories, stories of the killers that haunt him. Hannibal tells him, haltingly, of his childhood. The death of his parents and sister, the orphanage.

It’s the closest to anyone Will has ever felt in his life. It’s the happiest he’s ever been.

When they finally make port in Seattle, Will’s chest aches. They gather their belongings and stand on the dock together, pretending to admire the purple sweep of dusk.

“Come home with me,” asks Hannibal, quietly.

So Will does.

.

.

.

The weekend is a continuation of a shared daydream, surreal in its perfection. They bake bread and walk the dense forest surrounding Hannibal’s home. Hannibal goes out one morning and returns with a pound of fresh pork so they can make andouille sausages for jambalaya, a taste of Will’s past. Of course, it cannot last — Hannibal’s assistant comes knocking at his door on Monday to hassle him about returning to work. Will kisses him goodbye that night and returns to his empty, grey apartment.

When Will goes back to work on Tuesday, there’s a horde of reporters outside the shop.

They turn to him in unison. Will takes one look at their frothing mouths and cameras and flees back to his car, hoping there isn’t another warrant for his arrest.

This is not happening. Will doesn’t know why they’re here. He’s old news. The papers ran plenty of features on him; Lounds in particular milked the story for all it was worth. Speaking of Lounds—

“Mr. Graham,” she says, leaning against his car with a predatory smirk. “Can I get a comment on your relationship with Hannibal Lecter?”

Will starts. “What?” he says instead of ‘get the fuck out of my way’ because it’s Lounds and he reluctantly owes her.

“Can you confirm that you’re dating Hannibal Lecter?”

“Why does that matter to you?”

Lounds looks confused, then delighted. “Do you not know?”

Will thinks he might be missing a crucial piece of information here. “Please get the fuck out of my way,” he says. Well. At least he said please.

Lounds steps aside. “If that’s your official comment.”

Will floors the gas pedal and heads for Hannibal’s house.

.

.

.

“You’re famous,” Will says when Hannibal opens the door.

“Hello, Will. You didn’t answer my calls.”

Will steps inside and follows Hannibal to the study. There’s an open bottle of wine on his desk and a half-full glass. He must be in a state to have not even decanted it.

“I was driving.” Will didn’t even have to look up Hannibal on the internet to find out his secret. He passed a billboard advertising Hannibal’s most recent film on the way over, then had to pull over and hyperventilate for three or thirty minutes. _Two-time Oscar winner Hannibal Lecter_ , read the credit.

Will goes to the chaise and sits, then stands again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Hannibal hands him a tablet. _HANNIBAL LECTER DATING ACQUITTED MURDERER?_

“We’ve both been keeping secrets,” Hannibal says archly.

“You could’ve Google’d me,” says Will, and winces the moment the hypocrisy leaves his mouth.

Hannibal is a big enough person to not point it out. Instead, he says something far worse, “I wanted to learn about you organically. To know all of you only if you cared to reveal it.”

Will digs his nails into his palm and looks at the ground. Takes a deep breath. “Wanted?”

Hannibal swiftly puts the tablet down and goes to Will. He cradles Will’s face in his hands. “Want. I will not let you go so easily.” 

Will says, pathetically, “I was going to say something. I almost did, many times.”

“I understand. It isn’t an easy secret to share. Fear guides much of human behavior.”

“Yeah.” Will leans further into him. “I guess it’s the same for you. Most people probably already know. I just live under a rock.” Will hasn’t watched a movie in years. Doesn’t read the news. He traverses the path between his house and the store like a shade, unaware of the world in his periphery.

Hannibal brushes a thumb over his cheekbone. “I’ll admit I enjoyed the anonymity with you. I had planned on telling you during our voyage, but I was reluctant to pull away from the world we crafted. We both should have been honest sooner.”

“I’m sorry,” says Will. He kisses Hannibal, partly to reassure himself it’s still welcome. To his immense relief, Hannibal threads his fingers into Will’s hair and deepens the kiss, achingly sweet. He doesn’t pull away until Will does, and even then he chases Will’s lips for one more.

“Will you tell me now?” Hannibal asks, softly. “I did not read further.”

“Yes. Can we sit?”

They relocate to the sitting room. Hannibal stokes the fire while Will gathers his thoughts. When the room is suffused with pleasant heat, Hannibal sits beside Will on the loveseat and folds Will into his arms.

Will thought it would be difficult to begin. But when Hannibal puts his lips to his temple in reassurance, the words come out almost without him realizing. Ripping the band-aid off.

“I murdered someone,” Hannibal doesn’t react at all, the line of his body still warm and relaxed, so Will laces their fingers together and continues, “very brutally. We were tracking a killer who targeted families. Shot them in their beds and put mirrors in their eyes to see himself as he bit them, raped the mothers’ bodies. The media called him the Tooth Fairy but when I started to see him everywhere, I saw,” wings unfurling from a flame, a divine sun bursting gold, “I saw a dragon. I had hallucinated before so I didn’t think much of it. But the hallucinations got worse and I started to sleepwalk and lose time and eventually I woke up and found myself in a house of his victims, standing over his dead body.” He adds, distantly, “I tore his throat out with my teeth.

They arrested me there. I hadn’t moved for over a day, just standing there with the corpses. The FBI wanted to bury me, so they expedited the trial and sent me to prison for five counts of first degree murder. In prison I almost died from a seizure and they found out I had encephalitis. Freddie Lounds, of all people, got me out of there. She wrote an article about it and the false murder charges — do you read her stuff?”

Hannibal sounds pained when he admits, “At times.”

“Yeah, well. I can’t be too mad about her popularity. Some lawyer read the article and decided to go on a crusade. She filed an appeal and after months of trouble, I got retried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. Then while I was in a psychiatric ward, she helped me sue the FBI for wrongful imprisonment.”

“I see.” Hannibal grips Will a little tighter. “Was it?”

“What? Yes.” Will pivots his torso to face him. “Of course it was. I didn’t kill the family.”

Hannibal stares him down. “No. You killed Dolaryhyde. And you were not cognizant at the time of the murder.”

“Is that a question? I mean, I remember it. But, whether it was real or not, I didn’t know. I just couldn’t.” Stop himself? Control his own body? Will remembers what it felt like when the knife first cut into his face, then into Dolarhyde’s flesh. He remembers deciding to toss it aside and use his teeth instead. A fitting weapon to end the Tooth Fairy, to kill a dragon. It felt like a dream, the taste of blood and the sound of flesh rendering. Yet.

Hannibal is still watching him, unwavering. Even in the firelight, his eyes are supremely dark. _To know all of you,_ he said. But Will can’t give that. Can he?

Apropos of nothing, Hannibal says, “I told you that my sister died along with my parents.”

Will, not quit trusting himself to speak, only nods. Squeezes his eyes shut.

“I lied. She was killed a few months later by a party of men that came to our home. One of them grew impatient with her cries and dashed her skull against the wall.”

Then comes a long, deliberative silence. Will becomes abruptly aware of the position they’re in, the ease with which Hannibal could wrap his hands around Will’s neck.

“I later tracked down her killers. It was a formative experience for me.” 

On the plane to California, Hannibal spoke of how he became a man in Florence. Will’s brain sparks with a hundred other connections, unbidden. 

“Do you know what I did to them, Will? How I mourned her?” Hannibal asks. “Can you see me?”

Will shakes his head. “No. I won’t.”

“You will,” says Hannibal, softly, “because you want to. Because you want to be seen, as well.”

Does he? Doesn’t he? His heart is pounding in his ears. He can hear the rush of Hannibal’s blood and their hearts singing to each other and the ocean tossing them together, waves against a cliff face.

Will looks into his eyes and lets the pendulum swing.

.

.

.

Things should be different after that, and they are. Will just didn’t expect them to be _better_. 

Confronting the world, in all manners, is a small task with Hannibal at his side.

.

.

.

For Will, things are rather anticlimactic. Beverly calls Will thirty-two times over the course of a week before he gives in and answers, then grills him on the details of their relationship for two hours. She makes fun of him, a lot, for not recognizing Hannibal.

“That’s like not knowing who Rihanna is,” she groans.

“Who?”

“Oh my god, _Will_.”

“I’m joking. I know who Rihanna is. Mostly.”

“ _Will._ ”

Members of the press stake out his bookstore and prevent Will from going to work for about two weeks before half of them lose hope. The half that remains Will blows past with an air of immeasurable unfriendliness. When they come inside and bother him for comments, he scowls murderously and says nothing. 

It’s not altogether different from how he usually treats customers.

So Will continues his business (which is really more of a hobby given how vastly unprofitable it is, but he got enough money from the lawsuit to last his whole life) as before. But now, instead of drinking shitty instant coffee he has a steaming thermos every morning courtesy of Hannibal’s collection of organic, single-origin beans. Instead of going back to his cold, dusty apartment, he drives to Hannibal’s home. He helps Hannibal prepare dinner and they dine with private smiles and fall asleep in each other’s arms. Given certain factors of their pasts, it isn’t exactly an effortless transition. Yet now that Will is here with Hannibal, he can’t imagine any other life.

Of Hannibal, the world demands slightly more.

Will doesn’t attend the premiere of Hannibal’s film, but he watches the coverage after. Hannibal gets bombarded with questions that sound far more like accusations: _Can you comment on your relationship with Will Graham, who was acquitted for first degree murder by insanity?_ and _Were you aware that Mr. Graham spent a year in a hospital for the criminally insane when you began dating?_ and _Do you know your partner killed a man by biting his throat out?_

His publicist releases a statement that theoretically should answer the majority of the questions — they’re just asking to get a reaction they can sell. Hannibal handles it all with aplomb and grace by smiling that infuriating, placid smile and saying absolutely nothing that doesn’t pertain to the film.

Hannibal’s agent, a cold, unflappable woman by the name of Bedelia Du Maurier, informs them that the news is nothing to worry about when it comes to his career. His contract for Baz Luhrman’s adaptation of _The Aeneid_ is airtight, and in fact she’s fielding more requests for roles than ever before.

When she leaves, Will turns and looks at Hannibal dryly.

“In a manner of speaking, I _was_ taking a sabbatical to prepare for the role,” says Hannibal of their month at sea. “Did I not study _The Aeneid_?”

“You get away with too much.”

Hannibal smiles, crooked and endearing. “Come with me to Italy for the film, my love. I have grown used to coming home to you every night.”

“Won’t you be busy?”

“Yes. You can enjoy solitude in the daytime and my company at night. You can discover all the places you have read about. And after filming is complete, we will embark together on a voyage through the past.”

“Whose past? Aeneas’ or yours?”

“Would your answer change?”

Will reflects for a minute. Then he says, slowly, “No. It wouldn’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is what came of reading The Aeneid in Classics 90 all those years ago... lol


End file.
